The Twilight Twenty Five
by bsmog
Summary: Submissions for Round #3 of the Twilight Twenty-Five challenge. Locations for photo prompts included in each chapter.
1. If the Train Hadn't Come

The Twilight Twenty-Five  
Prompt #: 4  
Pen name: bsmog  
Pairing: None  
Rating: T

Photos for prompts can be found here:  
community[dot]livejournal[dot]com/thetwilight25/13912[dot]html

Twilight and all characters contained therein belong to Stephenie Meyer. No copyright infringement intended.

* * *

**_If the Train Hadn't Come_**

We would've danced all night if the train hadn't come. You in that suit from the shop on the corner, rented and wrinkled, but fine. Everyone at school would've seen us together. Finally.

If the train hadn't come.

But it did, and your car stalled on the tracks and you couldn't get out. And I waited. All night in my pretty white dress. I wore it to your funeral to say goodbye. Everyone said it was wrong.

And I wear it today. I come to the tracks to imagine that night. What might have been. If the train hadn't come.


	2. The Last Lullaby

The Twilight Twenty-Five  
Prompt #: 19  
Pen name: bsmog  
Pairing: Edward/Bella  
Rating: T

Photos for prompts can be found here: community[dot]livejournal[dot]com/thetwilight25/13912[dot]html

Twilight and all characters contained therein belong to Stephenie Meyer. No copyright infringement intended.

* * *

**The Last Lullaby**

There is a house in the woods. It was once a grand house, full of activity and art and music and healing.

In the house, there is a piano.

It was beautiful once, and grand as well. It sits in the parlor, and once it shone in the light of day and by the glow of the old chandelier at night.

He used to play that grand piano. He played it all the time. First he played it to pass hours that turned to days that turned to years of solitude and searching. He played marches and overtures and requiems, the stuff of frustration and missing pieces.

And then he met her, and he played even more. Beautiful melodies filled the air; lullabies and nocturnes serenaded the young lovers when their romance was new, and when they tired of one, he would write another. Peaceful harmonies flowed from the piano's keys as the pair lived their days equally peacefully.

When she grew old, he went back to playing the nocturnes and lullabies he'd played when their love was new. For of course she grew old; her skin wrinkled like paper and her spine bent. Her once lustrous hair turned gray and her eyes dulled to near-sightlessness. In the end, she could barely hear the strains of the songs he played for her, but she sat in her chair on wheels and held her hands to the top of the piano to feel the vibrations of the notes floating up from its depths.

He played almost all the time near the end, forsaking everything except the music she loved so well. He did not feed, but the lust did not settle upon him, so great was his devotion to giving her this lone comfort. His eyes grew black and hollowed, but of course she could not see. And he would not hear a word spoke by any of the others, even as they urged him to rest for just an afternoon, to take a break and feed and they would care for her until he returned. He knew their offers were meant as a kindness, but he couldn't bear to leave her for even a moment, lest he miss a single breath or word.

Then one day, a day not unlike every other day for so many weeks, as he finished the strains of the lullaby he wrote for her so many years ago when their love was new, she moved her wrinkled, spotted old hand from the lid of the piano and laid it on top of his fingers. Though she was old and he was not, and though she was weak and he was as strong as he had ever been, it was his fingers that trembled and hers that were still as she touched him. He could feel how weak her heart was in the frail pulse of her blood through her skin.

When she squeezed his fingers, he lifted his eyes to meet hers. Through the haze that had taken her sight, he though perhaps she saw the boy she'd loved for so long one last time, and she smiled at him. It was an old, tired smile, but it was full of peace.

She nodded once and sighed, and closed her eyes. With eyes as shiny as if they could produce tears and a sob that tore through his body, he leaned to kiss her leathery cheek and then sunk his teeth into the skin at her throat.

The others, who were huddled in the shadows knowing this day had come, said she looked so content that it was clear that his final gift to her was the peace and comfort she had craved since age began to steal her beauty and then her mind, and finally her body. So strong was his love for her that even as he descended into a world where he would never know peace again, his greatest wish was for her to find it at last.

His kiss was so soft and his bite so tender, and there was no frenzy as he took the last of the life she'd given him so many years ago. But he was thorough, and he made sure she had no blood left. When it was over, he lifted her in his arms and carried her silently to the bed they'd shared for the last seventy years, and he would not open the door for any of the others for days as he rode out the waves of his grief.

The others, who finally emerged from their places on the periphery of the grand parlor in pairs, wore their own grief plainly on their flawless faces. She had been sister and daughter to them as well, and had brought joy to their lives on her own, and through the joy she had brought him.

For he had done what none of them had ever had the chance to do: he had loved for a lifetime. For _her_ lifetime. His refusal all those years ago to make her one of them had not extinguished their love, and not a single day went by that they didn't love one another more than they had the day before until the last day when their love transcended the bounds of her life.

Days turned to weeks, and weeks turned to years. The others eventually left the house, but he never did. He had buried her in a meadow, the one where they'd shared so many stolen moments, so many kisses and caresses, and he could not bring himself to leave her behind.

And so the house grew dark and dusty and fell into disrepair. The chandelier in the grand parlor never lit the room again, and he never touched the piano after the day he she gave him the last of her life as his fingers still rested on its keys.

So there is a piano in this once-grand house in the woods, but, like the house, and like its lone inhabitant, it has fallen silent.


	3. An Unlikely Oasis

The Twilight Twenty-Five  
Prompt #: 2  
Pen name: bsmog  
Pairing/Character: Charlie  
Rating: T

Photos for prompts can be found here: community[dot]livejournal[dot]com/thetwilight25/13912[dot]html

Twilight and all characters contained therein belong to Stephenie Meyer. No copyright infringement intended.

* * *

**An Unlikely Oasis**

He stares unseeing down the rundown street. The only sounds are his ragged intake of breath and the occasional squawk of the police radio breaking parked cruiser's empty silence.

Officer Charlie Swan, sworn to uphold the safety of the citizens of Forks.

He laughs humorlessly. He can protect the townspeople, just not his heart. That's been crushed by a rusty old car headed for Arizona. His wife and daughter, his whole life, gone in a stream of tears and harsh words.

In the darkness, he sees it. A fluorescent flicker, a glowing oasis in a desert of emptiness: Cheap Booze.


	4. Boy Meets Girl

The Twilight Twenty-Five  
Prompt #: 21  
Pen name: bsmog  
Pairing: None  
Rating: T

Photos for prompts can be found here:  
community[dot]livejournal[dot]com/thetwilight25/13912[dot]html

Twilight and all characters contained therein belong to Stephenie Meyer. No copyright infringement intended.

**Boy Meets Girl**

The girl stands at the foot of the tree by the river, contemplating the climb up the great trunk and out onto the branch where the rope hangs. At the bottom of this rope, there is a tire, and this is the place she must reach. She is stock-still except for her fists, which she clenches and unclenches at her sides.

She rode her bike to get here, a brand new, shiny blue two-wheeler that had been next to her chair this morning when she came downstairs for breakfast. Not a little kid's bike, but a real bike with gears and hand brakes. Her knees bear scrapes that look like the skins on the strawberries she'd had for breakfast, but she knows now what happens if you push the front brakes and not the back ones, and how you have to keep pedaling while you shift. She wears her cuts proudly, they are battle wounds to be shown off, not baby cuts to be hidden under bandages. She is too big for that now, and she told her mother so when she limped triumphantly into the kitchen after her last fall shouting, "I did it, Mama! I shifted and I didn't fall the last time!"

Her mother had smiled and insisted on cleaning the cuts, but had acquiesced to the request to leave them uncovered.

But this is different. This is the tree and the tire swing that have mocked her for two summers. All the kids in her class have jumped off of it except her. But after one especially embarrassing day last year, when the teacher (who assumed all the children in the class had jumped from the tree, as had been custom in the little town since he was a child) assigned the class to write a story about how they felt the first time they jumped and she tearfully had to admit that she never had and the kids had laughed at her and called her chicken, she vowed that on her birthday, she would do it. She would swing out over the muddy water and fling herself into the air just like everyone else.

So here she stands, staring at the tree, a lump rising in her throat because she realizes today is no different than any other day, and she is still afraid.

The boy, who watches her from a little way away, because it's obvious to him that she thinks she is alone and he doesn't want to scare her or make her mad, notices her fingers squeezing open and shut against her shorts. He notices, because his are perfect mirrors of hers, and he realizes that he knows that means she's scared, just like he is.

But he's pretty sure she isn't scared of the same thing he is. He's new to the town, his family moved in after school let out, so he hasn't met many of the other children yet. He's afraid because he has to start all over and make all new friends, and he doesn't know yet how he will do that.

He decides that this girl might be his friend, and he squares his small shoulders and draws himself up to his full height (almost five feet tall when he measured this morning on the measuring wall in the kitchen) and walks to her side.

She looks at him, and he realizes she is looking him straight in the eye, which causes him to shrink a bit. He didn't expect her to be as tall as he is, and he certainly didn't expect the mean glare in her eyes. But, he reasons, it's bright outside, and maybe she's just squinting in the sun, so he soldiers on.

"Don't be afraid," he says. It's fun once you get up there, I swear!" He squeaks a little as he speaks, and his face reddens, but he tries to smile in a way that he thinks might be friendly.

He means it as encouragement, but the girl, whose shame at being afraid is now only trumped by her shame that someone else knows, lashes out at him.

"I'm _not_ afraid," she says hotly and scrunches up her face even more in a way that makes him sure she was _not_ squinting before. "And who asked you anyways?"

The boy ducks his head when she speaks, and tears threaten to bubble up in his eyes. If this is making new friends, he's pretty sure he'll be very lonely in this new place.

The girl, who knows what it's like not to have many friends, is instantly sorry.

"Wait!" She calls to the boy, who has turned around and begun to trudge away from her, his head down.

He stops and turns, trying not to let hope creep back into his face. Maybe she's just going to say something else mean before she tells him to go away.

But she doesn't.

"I'm sorry," she whispers, and now tears threaten _her_ eyes. "It's just...today is my birthday. I thought I wouldn't be afraid today, you know, because I'm older."

The boy nods. He thought he'd be bigger on his last birthday; he'd been bitterly disappointed when he woke up and ran downstairs, only to find the mark on the measuring wall was in exactly the same place it had been the day before. What good was a birthday if you didn't get bigger?

She takes a big breath and lets it out, looking back at the tree.

"I'm the only one in school that hasn't jumped off." Her lip quivers as her admission reminds her of her humiliation at school. "I have to do it this summer or all the kids will call me chicken."

The boy nods again, then smiles. His tears of a moment ago are forgotten, because he has an idea. And if it works, he might have a friend.

"It's okay. And it's okay if you're afraid. It _is_ high." He tries to make himself sound brave. He's jumped a lot of times; his brothers are older than he is, so whatever they do, he wants to do. There had been a tire swing in the last town his family lived in too, and he jumped off of it for the first time when he was seven, just because his big brothers did.

"I'm Emmett," he says and he holds out his hand like he's seen his father do when he meets people, and like his mother makes him do when strangers come over. She looks at his hand for a second, then puts hers in his and they shake. The motion is big and exaggerated, but in the gesture, a bond is formed.

"I'm Rosalie," she says. "I'm 10 today." She adds this because she's told him it's her birthday, and it seems important that he know how old she is.

"I'm 11," he says proudly. He's pleased to be older, and he thinks maybe it might make her trust him a little. "That's a really nice bike." He gestures toward her blue bike leaning on a smaller tree nearby. "Was it a present?"

She nods and beams.

"It's really cool. I just have my big brother's old bike, but it's pretty fast, and he helped me paint it so it looks new." He smiles a little sheepishly, thinking maybe he shouldn't have told her that last part. But she smiles back, and Emmett's smile breaks into a grin. He's pretty sure he's just made a friend.

"I'll jump with you," he says. "Then maybe it won't be as scary, you know, because I'll climb up there too so you won't be all by yourself? You can hold my hand if you're afraid." He puts in that last because, when he's afraid, his brothers or his mother sometimes take his hand, and when they do, he feels better. He doesn't know why, whatever is scaring him is still there, but knowing there's somebody else with him always seems to help. Maybe it will help her.

Rosalie bites her lip, looking at the tree again, and finally nods.

"Okay," she says. "You promise you won't let me fall?"

He nods seriously and holds out his hands for her to use as her first step up into the tree.

"You're my friend," he says, "I promise I won't let you fall."


	5. Shortcuts Never Pay

The Twilight Twenty-Five  
Prompt #: 7  
Pen name: bsmog  
Pairing/Character: Jasper/Maria  
Rating: T

Photos for prompts can be found here: community[dot]livejournal[dot]com/thetwilight25/13912[dot]html

Twilight and all characters contained therein belong to Stephenie Meyer. No copyright infringement intended.

* * *

**Shortcuts Never Pay**

Jasper Whitlock was a square. He blended into every background. Everyone liked him, but no one loved him.

And no one missed him when he was gone.

He was walking home from work in the dark. Lights through the park caught his eye, and he stepped outside his routine just once. He took a shortcut.

"Live dangerously," he thought, without a touch of sarcasm.

Days later, when he stumbled jobless (fired for repeated absence), penniless (she stole his wallet), and alone from her bed, he reproached himself.

He'd met Maria on that shortcut. Now she was gone.

Shortcuts never pay.


	6. Time Stands Still

The Twilight Twenty-Five  
Prompt #: 10  
Pen name: bsmog  
Pairing/Character: Charlie/Bella  
Rating: T

Photos for prompts can be found here: community[dot]livejournal[dot]com/thetwilight25/13912[dot]html

Twilight and all characters contained therein belong to Stephenie Meyer. No copyright infringement intended. Imagine Bella had gotten her wish on prom night.

* * *

**Time Stands Still**

I haven't touched your things since you disappeared. Your bed is still rumpled and unmade. The clothes you wore until you put on your prom dress hang over your chair. There's a stray pair of shoes next to the bed in the shape of an upside-down T, the arch of one sneaker braced against the heel of the other.

And the bike I bought you sits against the side of the house, leaves gathering in the spokes. I thought you'd want it for the summer, but summer's come and gone, and I cannot bear to put it, or you, away.


	7. What Was and Might Have Been

The Twilight Twenty-Five  
Prompt #: 25  
Pen name: bsmog  
Pairing/Character: Leah  
Rating: T

Photos for prompts can be found here: community[dot]livejournal[dot]com/thetwilight25/13912[dot]html

Twilight and all characters contained therein belong to Stephenie Meyer. No copyright infringement intended.

* * *

**What Was and Might Have Been**

A week ago, I had it all. The cutest guy on the rez wanted me, and I dreamt we'd get the hell out of Forks someday, Sam and me.

What a difference a week makes. Now Sam only has eyes for Emily, and all I can do is replay a ten-year-old memory of Em and I standing on La Push beach watching the clouds, hands entwined.

"We'll always be friends, won't we LeeLee?"

I'd squeezed her hand. _Yes._

Today _she_ has it all - my happiness, my man, my _life._

And I can't even hate her, because I squeezed _yes._


	8. Can't Buy Me Love

The Twilight Twenty-Five  
Prompt #: 9  
Pen name: bsmog  
Pairing/Character: Edward/Bella  
Rating: T

Photos for prompts can be found here: community[dot]livejournal[dot]com/thetwilight25/13912[dot]html

Twilight and all characters contained therein belong to Stephenie Meyer. No copyright infringement intended.

* * *

**Can't Buy Me Love**

Do you ever look back and wonder what the hell happened?

What happened to your dreams? Or that dreamy, bronze-haired boy at the window of a grungy apartment who said there was nothing you couldn't do together?

I'll tell you.

The new job became a race to the corner office. Beers with friends became martinis at the club. The grungy apartment became a penthouse downtown.

And that beautiful boy became your absent husband who sleeps at the office and snaps that he does it all for you. He hasn't touched you in months.

Somewhere along the way, your dreams died.


	9. When I Am Gone

The Twilight Twenty-Five  
Prompt #: 5  
Pen name: bsmog  
Pairing/Character: Edward/Bella  
Rating: T

Photos for prompts can be found here: community[dot]livejournal[dot]com/thetwilight25/13912[dot]html

Twilight and all characters contained therein belong to Stephenie Meyer. No copyright infringement intended.

* * *

**When I am Gone**

Her frail old hands shake as she lifts the packets of letters. She pushes them toward the boy across from her, the beautiful, ageless boy she has loved since she was a girl of seventeen.

Theirs was an impossible love made real, but given a temporary air when he refused, again and again, to take her soul.

She knows this is the end. As she slides stack after stack into his hands, she speaks. Her voice quakes and crackles like the letters' pages.

"I wrote you one for every day I've loved you. To remember us when I am gone."


	10. And They Dance

The Twilight Twenty-Five  
Prompt #: 3  
Pen name: bsmog  
Pairing/Character: Emmett/Rosalie  
Rating: T

Photos for prompts can be found here: community[dot]livejournal[dot]com/thetwilight25/13912[dot]html

Twilight and all characters contained therein belong to Stephenie Meyer. No copyright infringement intended.

* * *

**And They Dance**

The girl is young, too young for the high heels she teeters on. Her stocking-clad knees knock together as she walks. He is reminded of a colt he saw once, all awkward stumbles in a Tennessee field. He watches, fascinated, as she wobbles onto the dance floor. But dancing transforms her.

Her once-unwieldy legs move gracefully and her lithe body sways, one with the music. He steps confidently to meet her. But when he begins to dance, his body betrays him jerkily.

She takes his hand and they come together, and suddenly grace meets confidence like magic.

And they dance.


	11. Opening Night

The Twilight Twenty-Five  
Prompt #: 8  
Pen name: bsmog  
Pairing/Character: Edward/Bella  
Rating: T

Photos for prompts can be found here: community[dot]livejournal[dot]com/thetwilight25/13912[dot]html

Twilight and all characters contained therein belong to Stephenie Meyer. No copyright infringement intended.

* * *

**Opening Night**

Bella stood outside Edward's dressing room, heart pounding. Tonight she would tell him he was more to her than a best friend. It was opening night of his first play, and she wouldn't have missed a moment.

When he opened the door, eyes still alight from the applause, her lips were paralyzed by fear. So she catapulted into him, seeking out his lips and throwing her arms around him.

He froze and her heart sank, but before the lump in her throat could turn to tears, his arms tightened around her and his lips parted beneath hers.

Opening night indeed.


	12. A Girl Can't Dream

The Twilight Twenty-Five  
Prompt #: 24  
Pen name: bsmog  
Pairing/Character: Bella/Edward  
Rating: T

Photos for prompts can be found here: community[dot]livejournal[dot]com/thetwilight25/13912[dot]html

Twilight and all characters contained therein belong to Stephenie Meyer. No copyright infringement intended.

* * *

**A Girl Can't Dream**

He's the best part of every day. I sit on the fire escape smoking and mainlining coffee. He glides into view, auburn hair tousled, stunning in a suit worth three months' rent. I'm unkempt in my pajamas and bed hair.

I wish for a desk job and a dress code in the time it takes him to pass.

My last drag coincides with his disappearance from view and the accompanying reality slap.

_Please, Bella. You answer lonely strangers' calls. You haven't shaved your legs in a month. He's handsome and confident and probably charming._

_Why would he ever want you?_


	13. A Hellish Shade of Beige

The Twilight Twenty-Five  
Prompt #: 16  
Pen name: bsmog  
Pairing/Character: Edward  
Rating: M

Photos for prompts can be found here: community[dot]livejournal[dot]com/thetwilight25/13912[dot]html

Twilight and all characters contained therein belong to Stephenie Meyer. No copyright infringement intended.

* * *

**A Hellish Shade of Beige**

This is what hell looks like.

Hell is long lines of beige walls with beige counters and beige drawers. Even the people turn beige under the hideous fluorescent lighting.

When I was a little boy, I dreamed of being a doctor, or an astronaut, or the President.

"Daddy," I would say to my father, who_ was_ Dr. Cullen, "I'm gonna be a doctor just like you. Except not give people shots, because people don't like shots."

But I'm not a doctor. In fact, I can't even tell you what the fuck I am, other than trapped in hell.

Beige hell.


	14. Spin to Black

The Twilight Twenty-Five  
Prompt #: 17  
Pen name: bsmog  
Pairing/Character: Lauren  
Rating: M

Photos for prompts can be found here: community[dot]livejournal[dot]com/thetwilight25/13912[dot]html

Twilight and all characters contained therein belong to Stephenie Meyer. No copyright infringement intended.

* * *

**Spin to Black**

Hands grab at me. I slap them away. How dare they paw at my beautiful dress! This is my goddamn party, who do they think they are?

I lurch; I'm falling. I'm staring up at the ugly fucking chandelier that hangs from the ceiling in this stupid rented mansion.

I wanted to go to the Bahamas and drink. My parents wanted a deb. They won, but I can drink here too.

More hands.

I screech, "Stop fucking touching me! Don't you know who I am? I'm Lauren fucking Mallory! This is _my_ party!"

The chandelier spins; the room goes dark.


	15. And So It Ends

The Twilight Twenty-Five  
Prompt #: 14  
Pen name: bsmog  
Pairing/Character: Edward/Bella  
Rating: T

Photos for prompts can be found here: community[dot]livejournal[dot]com/thetwilight25/13912[dot]html

Twilight and all characters contained therein belong to Stephenie Meyer. No copyright infringement intended.

* * *

**And So It Ends**

I don't know how many days it's been.

I can tell you how many days I had my Bella in my life, but I can't tell you how many days it's been since she closed her eyes that last time, never to open them again.

Days don't mean much to a vampire since nights are as full or as empty as the days. I haven't slept in more than 170 years, but today I feel…tired. Except for those few rash months when we first met, I haven't spent a night without my wife in my arms in 65 years, and her absence now weighs on me like the sentence of a damned man.

I don't know how many days and nights I've sat next to this pile of fresh earth, the only place in our meadow not carpeted with green and purple and white and yellow. It's as though, if I sit here long enough, I might reverse the years. We could go back and begin again, relive our time together making the same choices or different ones.

In my hand I clutch a bottle top. It's old and worn from years of being rolled around in my stony fingers. I hold it delicately, even as I want to squeeze it in desperate effort to get closer to my Bella, though she has slipped out of my reach forever. I've had this silly piece of metal since I first met her, a trifle I snuck from her lunch table, a silly act by a silly smitten school boy. Often at night as she slept, I would fish it from the drawer near our bed and turn it over in my fingers, a reminder of those first days.

I loved her more with each passing day; with each new wrinkle or line on her face and each new curve of her body as it turned from girl to woman. I had thought, perhaps, if my love for her lessened, I might acquiesce and turn her in an effort to hold on to that feeling of ultimate love we had shared. But that day never came.

In her twenties, I refused her out of conviction. Her soul, undamaged, untainted, was worth far more than she could grasp. In her thirties, I did so out of principle; I had refused for so long, I didn't want to turn back now. She stopped asking in her forties, but I still would have turned her down. She grew more beautiful, more precious with each passing day. I selfishly didn't want to lose a single day of discovery, of learning one more thing I would love about her.

When she grew old, I began to realize I would lose her. We settled into our own silent, lonely laments: hers that she would leave me, and mine that I would remain behind. She held to her belief that I had a soul, and that perhaps one day we might reunite. Despite her many efforts, I held to my own convictions that my soul was lost long before I met her.

And now she is gone, and with her everything good about me. She brought me back my humanity in so many ways just by being human herself. The warmth of her touch, the _normalcy_ of her movements. She slept, she ate, she had no aversion to sunlight. She could not hear the thoughts of those around her, and her mind was a peaceful oasis for me amid the clatter of the minds of everyone around me.

She has left me alone now, and the buzzing of others' thoughts has grown to a roar. My own family, _our_ family, is by turns bereft and distant, trying to balance their grief with their uncertainty about how I will react.

They loved her too, of course, for the humanity she brought with her. For the acceptance of our daily lives, and for the unconditional love she gave to me day after day, year after year.

I cannot weep, but for the first time in my immortal life, I wish I had tears to shed. I haven't fed in weeks, not since before she fell ill, but I feel no thirst. My heart, cold and unbeating in my chest, feels as though it has been crushed. I can find no inspiration to do anything but sit here in the meadow where she rests with only an incidental piece of rubbish to connect me to her.

I berate myself for not changing her all those years ago when she asked. I regret every day we won't have together. I imagine how lovely she would have been as one of us, but dismiss the image out of hand when I think of the softness of her curves, the lines around her eyes and mouth from her beautiful human laughter.

Still, she could be here with me now instead of in the earth at my side. She would be here and I wouldn't be alone.

I will always be alone.

There will never be another for me. Our kind mates for life. There is just not usually a limit on the term of that life if we live peacefully. I wouldn't have traded a moment of my years with Bella for a lifetime of days with anyone else. But the long, lonely years lay before me now, stretched out in an endless line.

I wish for a moment that I could go to Volterra, that I could ask them to end me. I wish the wolves of our past might come back and end me. But I dismiss those thoughts as quickly as I did those of Bella as one of us. She would never wish me to end my own life because hers ended naturally. Were she here, she would reprimand me for leaving my family, for neglecting our home. She would remind me of every beautiful day we shared, and tell me that those days will live on as long as they are in my memory.

No, I had my time with Bella, and it's gone. I will not find her again in another life, nor in any afterlife from this one, for the angels do not share repast with the soulless.

I look, one last time at the bottle top. I memorize its worn edges, its chipped paint, the blurred words that were once printed inside.

Then, with a choked, tearless sob, I press it into the soft, damp earth at my side, pushing down until it is flush with the surface.

"Sleep well, my love," I say, and I lie down next to her for one last night.

One last night together.


	16. Flick

The Twilight Twenty-Five  
Prompt #: 23  
Pen name: bsmog  
Pairing/Character: Riley  
Rating: M

Photos for prompts can be found here: community[dot]livejournal[dot]com/thetwilight25/13912[dot]html

Twilight and all characters contained therein belong to Stephenie Meyer. No copyright infringement intended.

* * *

**Flick**

I don't breathe anymore. I haven't since _she_ stole out of the darkness and made me into _this._

_Flick._

Turns out being a vampire doesn't make me stop wanting things, _craving_ things from before.

_Flick._

Like smoking.

_Flick._

If I ever get my hands on that red-haired bitch, I'll tear her apart for taking away my smokes.

_Flick._

A newly-turned vampire walks by me.

"Dude. That shit will kill you." He gestures to the fire sparking from my lighter.

I rise calmly and wrench his head from his body.

"Mind your own business," I say to the headless form.

_Flick._


	17. Jump

The Twilight Twenty-Five  
Prompt #: 15  
Pen name: bsmog  
Pairing/Character: Bella  
Rating: T

Photos for prompts can be found here: community[dot]livejournal[dot]com/thetwilight25/13912[dot]html

Twilight and all characters contained therein belong to Stephenie Meyer. No copyright infringement intended.

* * *

**Jump**

Pictures always make you think that once you get below the surface of water, all is peaceful and calm. You think you will be hanging in a suspended universe of silence.

Pictures lie.

I was thrown off balance when I jumped from the cliff, and I hit the surface with such force that my teeth were jarred, but I still looked forward to that calm.

Instead, the water roils where waves crash on the cliffs. Weeds grope at my ankles, tugging me down. Darkness threatens, and I am not suspended, I sink and flail.

And I wonder why I jumped.


	18. Personal Icebox

The Twilight Twenty-Five  
Prompt #: 13  
Pen name: bsmog  
Pairing/Character: Bella/Edward  
Rating: M

Photos for prompts can be found here: community[dot]livejournal[dot]com/thetwilight25/13912[dot]html

Twilight and all characters contained therein belong to Stephenie Meyer. No copyright infringement intended.

* * *

**Personal Icebox**

"Get your head out of the damn gutter, Cullen," I grumble when my vampire husband tries to get frisky. "It's 100 fucking degrees outside. Washington's never seen heat like this."

"Aw, c'mon Bella," he half-whines, half-jokes. "How do you expect me to behave with you all naked and sweaty?"

I glare.

"Edward, you have no influence over this particular instance of naked _or _sweaty. Just shut up and take off your damn shirt."

He chuckles, but complies, and I sink down onto the cool surface of his skin, sighing contentedly and giggling.

"I knew I married you for a reason."


	19. Grains of Life

The Twilight Twenty-Five  
Prompt #: 1  
Pen name: bsmog  
Pairing/Characters: Carlisle/Edward  
Rating: T

Photos for prompts can be found here: community[dot]livejournal[dot]com/thetwilight25/13912[dot]html

Twilight and all characters contained therein belong to Stephenie Meyer. No copyright infringement intended.

* * *

**Grains of Life**

"Play with me Daddy?"

My son's voice slides out the doorway and into my ears in the hallway. I turn and enter instantly. We comply with whatever he asks for. Nothing is more important than his wishes.

He doesn't have many wishes left.

Edward holds a timer in one hand, a game piece in the other. He thrusts them out. The irony of my son, terminally ill, holding out a timer full of sand hits me harder than any prognosis.

I wonder as I take it from his tiny fingers how long it will be until he's out of time.


	20. Library of My Life

The Twilight Twenty-Five  
Prompt #: 6  
Pen name: bsmog  
Pairing/Characters: Carlisle  
Rating: T

Photos for prompts can be found here: community[dot]livejournal[dot]com/thetwilight25/13912[dot]html

Twilight and all characters contained therein belong to Stephenie Meyer. No copyright infringement intended.

* * *

**Library of My Life**

When one has lived more than 300 years, one learns to live without material things and to cherish the things one gains. Over the years, I have amassed significant wealth, allowing me not have to live the nomadic lifestyle of my youth.

But I do maintain one room in every house we inhabit for my treasures. Manuscripts, first editions, original artwork, these things line the walls of my library or office or study. They are mementos of the lives and identities I've lived since I changed.

Souvenirs of years and places I have survived, and the family I have created.


	21. Nickelodeon

The Twilight Twenty-Five  
Prompt #: 22  
Pen name: bsmog  
Pairing/Character: Edward  
Rating: T

Photos for prompts can be found here: community[dot]livejournal[dot]com/thetwilight25/13912[dot]html

Twilight and all characters contained therein belong to Stephenie Meyer. No copyright infringement intended.

* * *

**Nickelodeon**

I sit here silently in the blackness. I await the arrival of an impure mind, but in truth I sit here in this lonely theater because it is dark. No one will see my eyes or the luster of my skin.

I wonder, as I slump in the back corner of the nickelodeon, why I ever left my family. I wonder if I will have the humility, a trait uncommon in our kind, to return to them and beg sanctuary in a life where I can return to the light.

I'm tired of being alone with sinners in the dark.


	22. Road Trip

The Twilight Twenty-Five  
Prompt #: 11  
Pen name: bsmog  
Pairing/Character: Bella  
Rating: T

Photos for prompts can be found here: community[dot]livejournal[dot]com/thetwilight25/13912[dot]html

Twilight and all characters contained therein belong to Stephenie Meyer. No copyright infringement intended.

* * *

**Road Trip**

I've been in Forks for two years, three months, and fourteen days. _He_ has been gone for most of those, and since his departure, I have been suffocating.

I love Jake, and I am grateful for his presence, his company, his comfort. He brought me back.

But I cannot breathe in Forks, and today I must escape.

I'll get in my truck and drive. I'll drive until I can't see straight and eat in greasy spoons and sleep in roadside motels with daily and weekly rates that are the same.

And I will try to get away from everything _him_.


	23. First Date

The Twilight Twenty-Five  
Prompt #: 12  
Pen name: bsmog  
Pairing/Character: Carlisle/Esme  
Rating: T

Photos for prompts can be found here: community[dot]livejournal[dot]com/thetwilight25/13912[dot]html

Twilight and all characters contained therein belong to Stephenie Meyer. No copyright infringement intended.

* * *

**First Date**

If I had a heartbeat, I'm certain it would quake in her ears. I need her to see I changed her because I saw something in her broken heart. Something I haven't seen in hundreds of years and thousands of women.

We sit comfortably quiet in the woods. I thought a picnic, something to make her feel a bit of normal as she tries, after the newborn bloodlust has worn off, to adjust to this new life.

I hold a breath I don't need to take until finally she smiles, and my silent heart soars impossibly with joy.

And possibility.


	24. All That Remains

The Twilight Twenty-Five  
Prompt #: 18  
Pen name: bsmog  
Pairing/Character: Alice  
Rating: T

Photos for prompts can be found here: community[dot]livejournal[dot]com/thetwilight25/13912[dot]html

Twilight and all characters contained therein belong to Stephenie Meyer. No copyright infringement intended.

* * *

**All That Remains**

You wouldn't know she was here if you didn't see the papers wilting in the puddles. They fell like snowflakes around her as she crumpled over the truck's hood. Their white, silent descent contrasted poetically with her body's broken angles and bloody gashes.

She is but a headline now. The blood and glass have been washed clean from the road. They whisked her belongings off in a tidy bundle to be given to whoever came to claim her.

The papers are all that remain of her, the last things she touched. Soon they'll disintegrate and be gone, as she is.


	25. End of the Road

The Twilight Twenty-Five  
Prompt #: 20  
Pen name: bsmog  
Pairing/Character: Bella  
Rating: T

Photos for prompts can be found here: community[dot]livejournal[dot]com/thetwilight25/13912[dot]html

Twilight and all characters contained therein belong to Stephenie Meyer. No copyright infringement intended.

* * *

**End of the Road**

I will die here.

I sit in the hollowed, burned out shell of my truck alone in the desert. I am miles from anything and everything with no water and no cell signal. I am not afraid. But I wonder.

I wonder if Charlie will find me, Jake will cry at my funeral, if Edward will pretend to.

I wonder how long it will take before _they_ all carry on with their impossibly long lives, the human girl they knew no more than a distant memory.

I wonder a lot of things, but know only one: I will die here.


End file.
